Apple and Proview Begin Discussions to Settle iPad Trademark Fight

Apparently Apple and Proview have decided it might be better to sit down outside of court and try to figure out this whole iPad trademark issue.

Since the middle of February, Apple and Proview have been fighting in courts in both China and the United States over who exactly owns the rights to the “iPad” name in mainland China. Apple claims to have bought the rights in 2009, but Proview says that the Taiwanese branch of the company that the sale went through did not have the rights to do so. The case has now made its way to the Higher People’s Court of Guangdong Province, and that isn’t counting the lawsuit Proview filed in the U.S. claiming fraud charges due to Apple using a shell company to make the purchase.

In short, the entire situation is a mess.

According to PC World, the two companies have now agreed to negotiations outside of the court room to try to settle the case, but there is no word on how that is progressing. Chinese law allows for such negotiations to happen, but they can not be ordered by the court. It is not known which company made the first move for these talks, but seeing as Proview is actually bankrupt, we can’t imagine its lawyers are too keen on this case dragging out forever.

Hopefully there will be some sort of resolution to this in the not too distant future, even if it means Apple has to pay up some more money to keep the name in China.